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I found out yesterday that I’ve been shortlisted along with 17 other poets for Eyewear Publishing’s Christmas Fortnight Prize. This is the first time I’ve submitted to an award so I’m overjoyed they saw something in my work.

Eyewear are a small independent publishers based in London making some serious waves right now.

From the pitch blue that strikes
ache in the eye for trying
to find a bottom,
we carried into
Reeth under
an evil of colour.
Sundown bedraggled
with cloud-rips.
Lost I’d say, or left behind-
Red-sided
garter snake ecdysis,
vixen smeared
over an oily road;
or that thrift shop cardie
you’d never wear,
but for the soul of your mother,
can’t take your eye off.

In Notre Dame, there’s a bookshop
where they stick stickers
over every price and barcode,
marking each book up five, ten, twenty euros,
because it’s famous.
If you buy a book,
the lovely french till lady, who looks grotesquely literate asks,
“Would you like a stamp”?
And every customer gets a look of worry
and quietly asks,
“Does it cost extra?”
It doesn’t, and so every person says
“Yes, I’d like a stamp please”.

It’s always full of beautiful people
wearing their very best writer’s outfit-
Shawls and scarves all cleverly draped,
like the wind in Paris had delicate fingers.

Up the stairs to the left
there’s a little old piano
in a small enclave
and you’re allowed to play,
if you’re able,
but not allowed to take any photographs
in case you disturb someone’s studies.

Opposite the piano is a wall of post-it notes
with bits of prose, and lines of poetry, and songs, and messages;
all written by the patrons, all in different languages.
Each one assiduously chosen by their writer as the
champion of their portfolios. The line that communicates a pure essence,
and if some wandering publisher reads it,
will storm the world in search of them
to publish every sick and sweet word.
But they just sit there in a sort of dogged rest,
looking somewhat cemeterial,
twitching each time somebody opens the door,
and perfectly ignored
by everyone that walks by.

I picked up a book, read a page, put it back, and played a note
for the dead poems
as I left.

Grab a copy of my first ever poetry collection from I came here looking for a fight press.

‘We here at I Came Here Looking For A Fight have a rule: If it’s awesome, try to publish it. Using this simple guideline we put two and two together – Zach Jackson is awesome, so we published a collection of his poetry. Pretty simple.

Zach’s work is reminiscent of Charles Bukowski if he fronted a hardcore band and focused on incredible imagery. The Man In The Moon Blows Out Suns Like They Were Dandelion Clocks is an awe-inspiring collection from one of the most promising poets of the current generation. We may have come here looking for a fight but Zach is the number one contender.’